Condition assessment of reinforced concrete structures subject to chloride ingress: A case study of updating the model prediction considering inspection data

Abstract

The durability of reinforced concrete structures is affected by the corrosion of steel reinforcement due to chloride ingress. In general, the service life of a reinforced concrete structure is determined by considering the time to initiate and the time to propagate corrosion. Probabilistic models have been used to estimate the service life of a concrete structure by taking into account the inherent randomness observed in this process. Within this aim, it is vital to inspect the structure after several years of exposure using destructive or non-destructive testing to update the service life prediction models and to schedule proactive maintenance. This paper discusses a case study to analyze inspection data (i.e. potential mapping) to update the condition of the structure using a probabilistic service life prediction model. It also discusses the effect of the variation of water/cement (w/c) ratio on updated model prediction probabilities.